Ms A Burns v Tralee Ltd and 1 other — 2022

Ms A Burns worked as a cleaner for Tralee Ltd and told the registered manager, Karina Vernau-Pope, that she was pregnant in October 2019. The tribunal rejected several early complaints, including the proposed rota, the performance-plan meeting, the risk assessment, the earphone incident and the mobile-phone complaint, but found that from 26 November 2019 onwards there was pregnancy discrimination in a series of incidents involving Ms Vernau-Pope, Victoria Styles, Lorraine Standen and, later, Mr S Sohal.

The tribunal accepted that Ms Styles and/or Ms Standen accused the claimant of lying on 26 November 2019 and treated her unfavourably again on 1 January 2020 by refusing her a break that was consistent with the pregnancy risk assessment. It also accepted that Ms Vernau-Pope made a comment in early December about being able to require an early start to maternity leave, handed the claimant the 31 December 2019 sickness letter, and made disparaging comments that pregnancy was not an illness and that she could still get rid of the claimant. The tribunal found that the sickness absences relied on in the letter, apart from the 31 May 2019 and 10 October 2019 absences, were pregnancy-related, and that the later removal from the staff WhatsApp group on 7 February 2020 was also pregnancy discrimination.

The tribunal further upheld pregnancy discrimination against both respondents in relation to Mr Sohal’s handling of the grievance after 30 January 2020, his failure to investigate whether the absences were pregnancy-related, and the failure to support the claimant to return to work. It found that Mr Sohal had a closed mind on the pregnancy issue, did not properly investigate the mobile-phone allegation, and treated the grievance meeting as more of a disciplinary matter than an investigation. Because only incidents from 26 November 2019 onwards were upheld, the tribunal said no time-limit issue arose.

For victimisation, the tribunal accepted that the grievance submitted on 2 January 2020 was a protected act. It upheld the complaints that the grievance meeting was treated as more of a disciplinary matter, that the grievance was not investigated after 30 January 2020, and that the claimant was not supported to return to work; it dismissed the separate WhatsApp-group allegation as victimisation. On remedy, the tribunal found the claimant’s losses ran from 1 January 2020 to 24 June 2021, awarded £3,578.84 for financial loss, £17,550 for injury to feelings, and interest of £3,331.68 in total, making a final award of £24,460.52 payable by Tralee Ltd only. It assessed injury to feelings in the middle Vento band, at the middle of that band, because the discrimination was repeated over more than two months and the grievance response aggravated its impact.